By James
Petras

October 29,
2008 "Information
Clearinghouse"
--
The
presidential
elections in
the US, once
again,
provide an
acid test of
the
integrity
and
consequential
conduct of
US
intellectuals.
If it is the
duty and
responsibility
of the
public
intellectual
to speak
truth to
power, the
recent
statements
of most of
our
well-known
and
prestigious
public
pundits have
failed
miserably.
Instead of
highlighting,
exposing and
denouncing
the
reactionary
foreign and
domestic
policies of
Democratic
Party
candidate
Senator
Barack Obama,
they have
chosen to
support him,
‘critically,
offering as
excuses that
even
‘limited
differences’
can result
in positive
outcomes,and
that ‘Obama
is the
lesser evil’
and ‘creates
an
opportunity
for a
possibility
of change.’

What makes
these
arguments
untenable is
the fact
that Obama’s
public
pronouncements,
his top
policy
advisers,
and the
likely
policymakers
in his
government
have openly
defined a
most
bellicose
foreign
policy and a
profoundly
reactionary
domestic
economic
policy
totally in
line with
Paulson-Bush-Wall
Street. On
the major
issues of
war, peace,
the economic
crisis and
the savaging
of the US
wage and
salaried
class, Obama
promises to
extend and
deepen the
policies
which the
majority of
Americans
reject and
repudiate.

Twelve
Reasons to
Reject Obama

1.
Obama
publicly and
repeatedly
promises to
escalate the
US military
intervention
in
Afghanistan,
increasing
the number
of US
troops,
expanding
their
operations
and engaging
in
systematic
cross-border
attacks. In
other words,
Obama is a
greater
warmonger
than Bush.

2.
Obama
publicly has
declared
that his
regime will
extend
the ‘war
against
terrorism’
by
systematic,
large-scale
ground and
air attacks
on
Pakistan,
thus
escalating
the war to
include
villages,
towns and
cities
deemed
sympathetic
to the
Afghan
resistance.

3.
Obama
opposes the
withdrawal
of US troops
in Iraq in
favor of
redeployment;
the
relocation
of US troops
from combat
zones to
training and
logistical
positions,
contingent
on the
military
capability
of the Iraqi
Army to
defeat the
resistance.
Obama
opposes a
clearly
defined
deadline to
withdraw US
forces from
Iraq because
US troops in
Iraq are
essential to
pursuing his
overall
policies in
the Middle
East, which
include
military
confrontations
with Iran,
Syria and
Southern
Lebanon.

4.
Obama has
declared his
unconditional
support for
the position
of the
pro-Israel
Lobby and
the colonial
expansionist
and
bellicose
policies of
the Jewish
state. He
has promised
to back
Israeli
military
attacks
whatever the
cost to the
US. His
abject
servility to
Israel was
evident in
his speech
at the
annual AIPAC
conference
in
Washington
2008. Top
advisers who
have long
and
notorious
links to the
top echelons
of the
principle
Zionist
propaganda
mills and
the
Presidents
of the
Leading
Jewish
American
Organizations
wrote the
speech and
formulate

his
Middle East
policy.

5.
Obama has
promised to
attack Iran
if it
continues to
process
uranium for
its nuclear
programs.
Twice, just
weeks before
the
elections,
Obama’s
running mate
Joseph Biden
spelled out
a series of
‘points of
conflict’
(including
Iran,
Afghanistan,
Pakistan,
Russia and
North Korea)
emphasizing
that Obama
‘would
respond
forcefully’.
Obama’s
senior
Middle East
advisers
include
leading
Zionists
like Dennis
Ross,
closely
linked to
the
‘Bipartisan
Policy
Center’,
which
published a
report
serving as a
blueprint
for war with
Iran.
Obama’s
proposed
offer to
negotiate
with Iran is
little more
than a
pretext for
issuing an
ultimatum to
Iran to
surrender
its
sovereignty
or face
massive
military
assault.

6.
Obama
unconditionally
supports
Israel’s
expulsion of
Palestinians
and the
expansion of
Jewish
settlements
in the West
Bank, the
leading
cause of
Middle East
hostility,
warfare and
the
discredit of
US policy in
the region.
With three
dozen
Israel-Firsters
among his
leading
campaign
organizers,
top policy
advisers,
speech
writers and
among the
likely
candidates
for cabinet
positions,
there is
virtually no
hope of
‘influencing
from within’
or ‘applying
popular
pressure’ to
change
Obama’s
slavish
submission
to the
Zionist
Power
Configuration.
By
supporting
Obama, the
“progressive
intellectuals”
are, in
effect,
allies of
his Zionist
mentors.

7.
On the
domestic
front,
Obama’s key
economic
advisers
have
impeccable
Wall Street
credentials.
He gave
unquestioning
and
immediate
endorsement
to Treasury
Secretary
Paulson’s
$700 billion
dollar
taxpayer
bailout of
the richest
investment
banks in the
US. Obama
has failed
to challenge
Paulson or
the banks
over the use
of Federal
funds for
buyouts and
acquisitions
instead of
loans and
credit to
producers
and
homeowners.
Obama’s
backing of
Paulson and
the Wall
Street
bailout is
matched by
his meager
proposals to
suspend
mortgage
foreclosures
for a
three-month
period,
pending
re-negotiations
of interest
payments.
Obama
proposes to
escalate
transfers of
government
funds to
mismanaged
financial
institutions
and bankrupt
capitalist
corporations,
in efforts
to save
failed
capitalism
rather than
pursue any
new
large-scale,
long-term
public
investment
programs
which will
generate
well-paid
employment
for workers.

8.
Obama’s
economic
team has
openly
declared
their
embrace and
practice of
‘free
market’
ideology and
opposition
to any
effort to
engage in
large-scale
injections
of
government
funds in
publicly-owned
productive
activity and
social
services in
the face of
wide-spread
private
sector
failure,
corruption
and
collapse.

9.
Obama
embraces
failed
private
sector
health
plans, run
and
controlled
by corporate
insurance
companies,
conservative
medical and
hospital
associations
and Big
Pharma. He
publicly
rejects a
universal
national
health
program
modeled
after the
successful
Federal
Medicare
program in
favor of
inefficient,
state-subsidized
private for
profit plans
that are
costly and
beyond the
means of
over one
third of US
families.

10.
Obama is and
continues to
be an
advocate for
Big Agro and
its highly
subsidized
and
profitable
ethanol
program,
which has
increased
food prices
for millions
in the US
and for
hundreds of
millions in
the world.

11.
Obama
advocates
continuing
the criminal
embargo on
Cuba,
hostile
confrontation
with
Venezuela’s
populist
President
Chavez and
other Latin
American
reformers
and the
duplicitous
policy of
promoting
protectionism
at home and
free market
access to
Latin
America.
His key
policy
advicers on
Latin
America
propose
cosmetic
changes in
style and
diplomacy
but
unrelenting
support for
re-asserting
US hegemony.

12.
Obama has
not
proposed,
nor do his
free market
advisers and
billionaire
financial
backers
envision,
any
comprehensive
plan or
strategy to
get us out
of the
deepening
recession.
On the
contrary,
the course
of piecemeal
measures
presented by
Obama are
internally
inconsistent:
Fiscal
austerity is
incompatible
with job
creation;
bailing out
Wall Street
drains funds
from
productive
investment;
and pursuing
new wars
undermine
domestic
recovery.

CONCLUSION

The
intellectuals
who, in the
name of
‘realism’,
support a
politician
who publicly
and openly
embraces new
wars,
billionaire
bailouts and
for profit,
private
sector-run
health
programs are
repudiating
their own
claims as
‘responsible
critics’.
They are
what C.
Wright Mills
called
‘crackpot
realists’,
abdicating
their
responsibility
as critical
intellectuals.
In
purporting
to support
the ‘lesser
evil’ they
are
promoting
the ‘greater
evil’: The
continuation
of four more
years of
deepening
recession,
colonial
wars and
popular
alienation.
Moreover,
they are
allies of
the mass
media, major
parties and
the legal
system which
has
marginalized
or outright
excluded the
alternative
candidates,
Ralph Nader
and Cynthia
McKinney,
who do speak
out and
oppose the
war, the
pro-Wall
Street
bailouts and
propose
genuine
large-scale
public
investment
in the
domestic
economy, a
universal
single payer
health
program,
sustainable
and
pro-environment
economic
policies and
large-scale,
long-term
income
redistributive
policies.

What is
crass and
unacceptable
is the
argument of
these
intellectuals,
(an
insignificant
pimple on
the
Democratic
donkey’s
rear-end)that
for a single
moment
believe that
their
‘critical
support’ of
the Obama
political
machine will
open
space
for radical
ideas. The
Zionists and
civilian
militarists
totally
control
Obama’s war
policy in
the Middle
East: There
will be no
space for
peace with
Iran,
Palestine,
Pakistan,
Afghanistan
or Iraq.
Wall Street
controls the
Obama’s
financial
policy:
There will
be no space
for some
Cambridge
progressive
to sneak in
a handout
for families
losing their
homes.

If
multi-million
trade union
treasuries
have spent a
hundred
million
dollars on
each
presidential
campaign
have failed
to secure a
single piece
of
progressive
legislation
in over 50
years, isn’t
it
delusional
for our
progressive
‘public
intellectuals’
to imagine
that they,
in their
splendid
organizational
isolation,
can
‘pressure’
President
Obama to
renounce his
advisers,
backers and
public
defense of
military
escalation,
to see his
way to peace
with Iran
and to
promote
social
justice for
our workers
and
unemployed?

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